http://pacificpolicy.org/2014/02/21-things-they-never-tell-you-about-poor-countries/?&owa_medium=feed&owa_sid= Thinking for ourselves Fri, 28 Aug 2015 01:04:27 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.3 http://pacificpolicy.org/2014/02/21-things-they-never-tell-you-about-poor-countries/#comment-749 Mon, 03 Mar 2014 17:02:50 +0000 http://pacificpolitics.com/?p=4568#comment-749 Great article… but! It’s ‘underlines’, not ‘undermines’! Quick, change it before this thing goes viral! :-)
Regards,
Ralph

]]> http://pacificpolicy.org/2014/02/21-things-they-never-tell-you-about-poor-countries/#comment-632 Thu, 27 Feb 2014 13:28:48 +0000 http://pacificpolitics.com/?p=4568#comment-632 Thanks Dan
An interesting story overall. One thing that really struck me when travelling in PNG, Bougainville and the Solomon Islands a year ago was the strength and integrity of cash poor individuals who’s daily activities (chores in plantations and gardens, collecting firewood ect) benefit the development of their villages, Clans and communities as well as them selves as individuals. Peoples traditional economies in the places I visited especially in Bougainville are very strong. The bases of their Wontok (one talk) system is fundamentally based on sharing and gift economy. It is about shared benefit and shared responsibility. For example a Sing Sing Kaul ceremony whether it be a land betrothal, a death, a marriage or a compensation gesture is an event which is an exchange of participation in that ‘shared responsibility’ and ‘shared benefit’ when the large amounts of food displayed over the event is shared and taken home to villages throughout the community. What I am saying is that although I met some cash poor people in my experiences there, who I felt sorry for in some ways, peoples riches in community, cooperation and the basic integrity of providing for themselves and their kinship’s was stronger than anything I could have imagined and it was quite a shock to come back to Australia where peoples relationships are so flimsy and peoples sense of self, albeit community responsibility is starkly piss weak and depressing, in that the state or the corporation intercepts that responsibility and autonomy. I reckon representatives of the aid industries ought make agreements to go and live with these people (as you say for a long time) and learn the fundamental richness in life experience that they practice so as to bring some of that knowledge back to the west to teach the next generation how to look after each other and themselves without the dummy of state/corporate dependency in their mouths.

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